The Motivational Trick that Works – EVERY Time

I have stumbled upon a little “trick” that I have shared with friends and fellow speakers for about a year now that they later tell me works like a charm – every time. It’s something anyone and everyone can do. Are you ready?

Write your own motivational “book.” Okay, okay, okay. Keep reading, (I can see your eyes rolling from here), because I’m not talking about becoming a motivational writer or speaker, although that’s great if you want to do so. For the most part, you’ll be writing for your eyes only.

A lot of success coaches and motivational gurus talk about keeping a “Career” journal. I’m sure you’ve heard of it before – you keep a special journal with career successes and challenges, then go back and review it periodically so that you can see how far you’ve come.

I’ve taken that concept one step further. Yes, keep a special journal. I mean, pay a few extra dollars for this paper. Choose a cover that inspires you. Make sure it’s of good quality. In other words, this particular journal is not going to come from Walmart (hopefully.)

Now, I do want you to write down, in this special diary, your career successes. But I only want you to write in this special journal when you are feeling on top of the world. You’ve had those experiences – those days when everything was just perfect. You were fantastic. You could hear, see, taste, touch, and feel with every fiber of your being, your success.

Writing in this journal is a privilege. You do not write in this journal every day, and you never, ever, write anything negative. This is not a chronicle of your feelings, although your feelings will be imbedded in it. In fact, that’s the very point.

The reason I want you to only write in this journal when you are feeling fabulous, is because later on, days, weeks, months, or years later, when you come back and read an entry, you will actually feel, if only for a few brief seconds, the exact vibration you were feeling when you wrote that entry.

Now, stop and think about this for a moment. It’s great to pick up a motivational book and read a passage that gets you going. But to be able to pick up something that you wrote, that reminds you of how wonderful you are, how fantastic your life is, how talented you are in your chosen field, and to remember these things with the same passion that you were feeling when you wrote about them – that is priceless! It doesn’t have to be grammatically correct or anything ready for publishing – it just has to capture the moment, the feelings, and the vibration of success.

Don’t get me wrong: I am eternally grateful for the blessings of great writers like Napoleon Hill, Og Mandino, Steve Chandler, Brain Tracy, Jack Canfield, Bob Bly, Nicole Williams, Esther Hicks and I could go on and on and on . . . But the best motivator for Debra Moorhead, is Debra Moorhead. And the best motivator for you, is you.

I challenge you to challenge me. Challenge this theory. Purchase an expensive journal and follow my instructions. Here is what I’ve written just inside the front cover of my $25, 5.5” by 8” leather bound pink crocodile-print professional journal:

“This is a very special journal – evidenced by the cover. I allow myself to write in this book only when I have earned the right. It is encouragement for my future self.”

I want to clarify something I said earlier. I wrote, “Never, ever, write anything negative.” What I really mean by that is, don’t write when you’re feeling negative. It’s okay to write about feeling great because you’ve overcome a major obstacle. That’s often when we do feel on top of the world. You’re just not going to use this journal as a place to whine. Do that in your regular journal. In fact, I tear out and through away my entries that are negative. It’s good to get such feelings “off your chest,” but don’t hang on to them. Don’t go back and read them. What purpose does it serve?

You might think that it would help you realize that you’ve “had it worse.” But it doesn’t make you feel good at all. I read a long time ago about an experiment where volunteers were asked to keep a journal for one year. At the end of the year, the group was split in half. One-half was told to throw their journals away. The other half were told to go back each day and read the entry for that day the previous year. A large percentage of the participants who read their previous journal entries were diagnosed with severe clinical depression within six months. Interesting, isn’t it?

So use this information to your advantage. Don’t write something that is going to bring down the energy level of your future self. Write in this journal only when you’re feeling great and have something you really want to remember.

When I go back and read entries from my special professional journal, it’s more than just being motivated into action; I am reminded of my own greatness. Sure, it’s great to see how far I’ve come and to realize that I am capable of overcoming just about any obstacle that comes up. But it’s more than that. It’s proof that I can do it. It’s proof that I can do anything I put my focus on. There is nothing more powerful than that.